With Recent Comments, Are Ko Wen-Je And William Lai Misreading Trends In Taiwanese Identity?

WITH KO WEN-JE and William Lai increasingly taking flak from the public regarding statements that are perceived as too compromising of Taiwanese sovereignty to China, one generally suspects that the efforts of powerful Taiwanese mayors to use their power as the representatives of large swaths of the Taiwanese population to establish independent foreign relations with China is doomed if they aim to accomplish this through placating China. Namely, powerful Taiwanese mayors as Ko and William Lai, mayor of Tainan, have recently drawn controversy for statements perceived as too pro-China despite their prior political stances strongly in favor of defending Taiwan’s de facto independence or affirming of Taiwanese independence.

William Lai. Photo credit: Tainan City Government

Fear of political turncoats runs high in Taiwanese politics, probably as a legacy of Taiwan’s authoritarian past. And it is obviously not impossible that politicians may eventually turn on their bases as part of the process of accommodation to the political institutions they enter after being voted into office. But it seems more probable that as the mayors of cities commanding large swaths of the Taiwanese population, Taipei and Tainan, Ko and Lai realize that they hold a large share of political power in Taiwan and that it is possible for them to take Taiwan’s foreign policy into their own hands using their mayorships in a way which circumvents the central government.

Yet with strong public backlash, both Ko and Lai may be misreading the current sentiments of Taiwanese society, whether this is a reaction prompted because of Taiwanese identity or present views in society of what Taiwan’s international status should be. Seeing as Ko and Tsai Ing-Wen both rode into power on the wave of youth support after the Sunflower Movement, itself a strong expression of anxiety over Taiwan’s relation with China, present Taiwanese society may simply chafe too much at the suggestion of continued ties which bind with China to accept their formulas aimed at placating China while maintaining Taiwan’s current de facto independence which nonetheless feel to many as giving up too much of Taiwan’s dignity or otherwise denigrating Taiwan’s hard-fought-for sovereignty. This comes at a time when China is applying more diplomatic than pressure on Taiwan and is probably directly related to this fact. After all, calls for the political “normalization” of Taiwan have been on the uptick since Taiwan’s loss of diplomatic allies as Panama due to Chinese influence.

Ko very probably hopes to use the Universiade as an opportunity to put Taiwan on the world stage, as well as possibly to demonstrate Taiwan’s de facto independence from China, yet this already seems highly likely to fail. To begin with, few international events as large-scale Universiade occur in Taiwan, but the Universiade is simply not internationally well known enough as an event to accomplish Ko’s aims. Ko is in all likelihood banking a large degree of his political credibility on an event which will not be successful and, despite prominent advertising for the Universiade well over a year before it is to take place, ticket sales have been low so far.Moreover, in the process of attempting to secure Chinese participation, Ko acts in a way that members of Taiwanese society perceive as denigrating to Taiwan more than anything else, this will lead to strong backlash.

But, again, it may be a sign of current trends in Taiwanese identity that even politicians with a solid history of pro-Taiwan stances in the manner of Ko and Lai receive backlash for coming off as too uncritically friendly towards China in the public eye. This may be a telling sign, but will it be one which even politicians as high-profile as Ko and Lai misread? One wonders. Certainly, this could have implications for more mainstream DPP politicians down the line, if this allows the NPP or other parties to attract public support through firmer support of Taiwanese independence. However, such developments remain to be seen.

Brian Hioe was one of the founding editors of New Bloom. He is a freelance writer on social movements and politics, and occasional translator. A New York native and Taiwanese-American, he has an MA in East Asian Languages and Cultures from Columbia University and graduated from New York University with majors in History, East Asian Studies, and English Literature. He was Democracy and Human Rights Service Fellow at the Taiwan Foundation for Democracy from 2017 to 2018.

About New Bloom

New Bloom is an online magazine covering activism and youth politics in Taiwan and the Asia Pacific, founded in Taiwan in 2014 in the wake of the Sunflower Movement. We seek to put local voices in touch with international discourse, beginning with Taiwan.